San Diego Music
How to Judge the Vitality of Your Town’s Music Scene.
When Smash Magazine asked me to write an article about the state of the San Diego music scene, I began to think about how such a thing could be defined. We often mention the quality of one city’s music scene over another but what exactly is it that makes a good or bad music scene? What tangible ways can that be determined? And how does San Diego rank with other infamous rock locales?
To answer these questions, I’ve composed a comprehensive checklist for rating the quality of your city’s music scene and then used it to grade mine – The City of San Diego.
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How to Grade Your City’s Music Scene (Answer these 7 questions, then tally the score).
Does Your City…
1) Have Ample Live Music Venues? (20 point value): The more venues you have, the more bands will crop up, the more music styles you get to hear, the more shows you get to see, the more-better overall for your rock and roll lifestyle. San Diego ranks above average in this category having anywhere between 60, and 80 live music venues.
San Diego scores: 17 out of 20 points
2) Boast Multiple Bands/Musicians Who Have “Made It” on the National Level? (15 point value): This is how your city gets on the map for music. When P.O.D is running rocking everyone out across the country, people start asking, “Where are they from?” and before you know it, music fans from Bangor to Bakersfield are talking about all the great bands that came out of your town.
Many national and international legends have come out of San Diego, such as: Iron Butterfly, Gary Puckett, Ratt, Frank Zappa, Steven Bishop, The Penetrators, The Beat Farmers, Mojo Nixon, Nickel Creek, Louis XIV, Tom Waits, The Rugburns, Stone Temple Pilots, Lucy’s Fur Coat, Blink 182, Jewel, Unwritten Law, Sprung Monkey, P.O.D., Jason Mraz, Jewel, Switchfoot, Slightly Stoopid, Locust, Album Leaf, Agent 51, Blackheart Procession, Pinback, Reeve Oliver, Ravi Shamkar, Tristan Prettyman, Eddie Vedder etcetera.
San Diego scores 12 points (including -1 penalty for harboring Jewel)
3) Have All Ages Venues? (10 point value): San Diego has one all ages joint, but it’s flailing. The club is called Soma and thanks to the somewhat conservative, neo-prohibitionist scumbaggian nature of San Diego City government, it is nearly impossible for all age venues to serve alcohol, making it even impossibler for the venue to make money, and the reason Soma struggles to stay alive, and why so many others have shut down, and why I hate neo-prohibitionist scumbags.
San Diego score: 7 out of 10
4) Have Real True Punk Clubs? (10 Point Value): Every real true rock and roll town has at least one Real True Punk Club. You know, the kind of club the owners don’t mind if you trash; basically a warehouse with a bar where can mosh your face off. In San Diego you do see some moshing, but it’s always that distilled sorta half-mosh which is monitored by bouncers who work for owners who do care if you trash their club. I guess San Diego is just soft in the punk category. We live in a paradise with nearly perfect weather, and the hottest babes on the planet – we’re just not that pissed off.
San Diego score 6 out of 10
5) Have a Club of History (10 Point Value): A Club of History is a venue that hosted previously unknown bands which rocketed to stardom out of said club. Like New York’s CBGB’s, or Los Angeles’s The Whisky-a-Go-Go. The closest thing San Diego has to a Club of History is a coffee house called Java Joes which helped break Jewel, and Jason Mraz among others.
San Diego score: 8 out of 10 (-1 for breaking Jewel) = 7
6) Attract Numerous Touring Acts (20 Point Value): The amount of bands on U.S. or world tours that stop in your city is a key indicator as to whether yours is or isn’t a respectable music town. Ten years ago, San Diego was invisible. Even touring musicians who lived in San Diego didn’t stop here on their tour. Lately it’s been getting better thanks in part to quality booking on the club level, the entry of House of Blues into the market, and the ever increasing influx of sun-loving, hot-babe-craving, rock-thirsty east coast immigrants.
Score: 17 of 20.
7) Have a Hip Radio Station Dedicated to Local Music and Quality Programming Including Occasional B-Side and Obscure Song Playing? (15 Point Value): KCR at SDSU is one of the better college radio stations in the nation and of course FM 94.9, which is the closest thing to grass roots a large-ish market radio station can get. Part of what makes 94/9 so beautiful is that the jocks are involved with the local scene, such as Anya Marina ( midday 9 a.m. – 2 p.m.) who is also a local singer-songwriter, Mike Halloran (2-6 p.m.) a long time warrior for local music, and Tim Pyles, host of 94/9’s local show The Local (Sundays 8-10 p.m.).
San Diego rating: 14 of 15, for a grand total of 80 out of 100 percent. San Diego music town grade:
B minus
- Summary: San Diego may not have the rating of your New Yorks or your Los Angeleses, or your Austin Texases, but we don’t do so bad and we have nearly perfect weather and the hottest babes in the nation.
Email ed@edwindecker.com
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